A Bit of a Quandary

I enjoy writing, so was very pleased to find HubPages, but, as I have mentioned before, I felt that it presented me with a dilemma.

I would love to earn money from my writing ~ that's what most writers hope to do, I think.

I am not working at present, because I have some health problems, so I have more time at home to write and more of a desire to make 'writer' my profession.

But, as I said, I have discovered a dilemma.

The way we earn money on Hub Pages is not by actually selling our books and articles, but by, in effect, getting commission on goods or services, sold as a result of our items.

At first, I felt very uncomfortable about this, but then I realised that other authors promote their works ~ just as actors often supplement their income by appearing in adverts or doing voice-overs.

I decided to concentrate on two types of hub ~ those that concern my interests, eg, in literature or matters historical, etc, and those which look at useful items that I have been pleased to find ~ my 'best buys' or 'favourites'.

But are the latter just too light and promotional?

There is, obviously, a difference between the following:~ an item about the history of Spain, which results in a reader deciding to buy a book on the subject, ~ a hub which simply describes, reviews and promotes goods, which may be purchased online, in the hope that a reader will buy something.

There are probably a number of opinions on this subject, but, basically ~ are my 'Best Buy' hubs OK?

Trish--Nice start on commercial hubs! I do have a few comments, however:

Across the board, I would say to spread out your Amazon ads--have some at the top, some throughout the body and some at the bottom.

On the mini fridge hub, you have a links box in the upper right with redundant text in it. First it has "This is one of my 'best buy' hubs, where I look at items that I have found useful and which others may be interesting in acquiring." and then "This set of hubs looks at items that I have found useful ~ and which are available to purchase online." I would also move that down further into the body of the hub, as it is taking up valuable real estate where it is.

I think asking a hypothetical question here or there is fine, but you have definitely taken it to the extreme. In two of your hubs, you start off by asking the reader a series of question. People are coming to you for information--not to be put to work answering a series of questions. When you're trying to sell something online, don't ask them what they want--tell them what they want. I would also advise against using titles that ask a question, like "Do you want to buy a....".

In general, you want to sprinkle your Amazon ads throughout the hub, rather than clumping them all in one block in the middle. Have some at the top, throughout the body and again at the bottom.

You have just a few seconds to grab a reader's attention, so be sure to convey the benefit of the product to the reader in the first couple of sentences. Starting with, "Garnets are a precious gift to give...." will probably work better than "Do you love garnets?" You might also want to include information like what a garnet is, why someone would want to buy one rather than a diamond or sapphire, etc.

Instead, highlight the text underneath the link (Andrew Rieu - Vienna Waltzes) and click the chain icon on the capsules menu. Insert the link there. That will make "Andrew Rieu - Vienna Waltzes" clickable, and will spare the reader from a convoluted link. (And you did use the proper Amazon link with your ID in it, right?)

Thank you very much for your feedback and your advice, lrohner ~ very much appreciated:)

I have tried to sort out a few of the things that you have mentioned, already, and will keep going back and tweaking.

I get the impression that you consider this kind of hub to be, generally, ok, but needs to be honed so that it does its job well, rather than that it might be 'just too light and promotional', which was my concern.

You need to set it up in affiliates settings, click on my account, then on affiliate settings. Choose the option for Amazon and you will need to set up an account with Amazon. If you have already done this, then a code will be in the box, if not it will be blank.

Trish-Get into your Amazon Affiliates account and click Links and Banners from the top menu. Then click Add Product Links Now. Find the product you want and click the "Get Link" button. You'll see a whole bunch of icky code pop up in a box, but you only need a portion of it.

Find the part contained in quotes that begins with "http://whatever/blahblah/", and grab everything that's inside of that set of quotes. That's your link and it has your Amazon ID in it so that whoever clicks on the link and buys something, you get credit for.

OR

Get into your Amazon Affiliates account and click on Account Settings in the upper right corner. Click Associate Site Stripe Options and turn it on. Now when you're logged into Amazon and you go to one of their product pages, you'll see a gray stripe across the top of your screen with the option to "Link to this". When you click that button, it will give you the link to paste into your capsule.

I have an Amazon Affiliates account and it is linked only to my Hubpages account (on the HP My Account page / Affiliate settings section). So far, when I have placed ads for Amazon products, I have only used the Amazon capsule in the Edit mode of a Hub. I either just copy and paste the URL or IBN #, or I run a search by keyword and Amazon supplies the suggested products to place in the capsule.

In reading this current forum topic/thread, it seems to me that there may be another step that I need to take to supply the proper code, so I will get credit if someone clicks on the link for these products I have advertised. Is that correct? Or does the step of setting up my Amazon account as linked to my HP account take care of it all? Please help!?!

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